In recent years, evolving hygienic sensibilities coupled with a desire for convenience has fueled a rise in wet wipe popularity. However, much controversy is associated with the disposal of current wipes. In light of waste treatment facility requirements, there is a need for a wipe that is water dispersible.
The ability to easily dispose of single use paper or nonwoven articles has been the objective of numerous studies. Such products not only call for good wet and dry strength of the product during use, but for the product to disperse in aqueous environments without clogging waste disposal or septic systems. Products that would benefit from such properties include, for example, wipes, toweling used for wet or dry cleanup, napery, diaper, sanitary products, toilet papers toilet seat covers, and etc.
Different technologies have provided dispersible paper and non-woven products.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,838,725 describes a mechanically weakened paper. The web contains two “mechanically weakened” layers that are joined by a water sensitive binder such as polyvinyl alcohol or starch. Salt sensitive polymeric (“ion trigger”) binders are insoluble in aqueous salt solutions but soluble when the salt solution is diluted, allowing the production of dispersible paper and non-woven products. An issue is that salt solutions can be irritating to sensitive skin.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,189,307 teaches a fibrous sheet comprising a topically-applied network of a cured binder composition resulting essentially from the cross-linking reaction of a carboxylated vinyl acetate-ethylene terpolymer emulsion and an epoxy-functional polymer. Example 11 in this patent discloses a binder which also incorporated glyoxal as a crosslinking agent in the latex formulation, using Kymene® 2064 (an epoxy-functional polymer), and AIRFLEX 426 (a carboxylated vinyl acetate-ethylene terpolymer emulsion). The epoxy-functional polymers provide permanent wet strength and do not provide a dispersible non-woven or paper product.
U.S. Pre-grant Patent Application Publication No. 2014/0311696 discloses a dispersible dry-wipe article comprising a dried binder in contact with a web of fibers. The dried binder comprises a polyfunctional aldehyde which imparts the dispersibility characteristic to the dry wipe.
However, wipes currently being sold continue to have problems in use. Such as, the city of New York has spent more than $18 million in the past five years on wipe-related equipment problems, with the volume of materials extracted doubled since 2008. Wet wipes, which do not disintegrate the way traditional toilet paper does, have plagued, for example, Hawaii, Alaska, Wisconsin, California, Portland, Oreg., and Portland, Me. Flegenheimer, M. (2015 Mar. 13). “Wet Wipes Box Says Flush. New York's Sewer System Says Don't.” The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com
While flushable non-woven wet wipes are currently available, still there exists a need to have a wipe that can have sufficient loft, texture, patterns and fire retardant to exhibit additional benefits of feel, safety and efficiency. Non-woven wipes containing a dry binder that are currently available, provide wet tensile strength that is either too low initially to function effectively after aqueous saturation or too high to afford flushability. Additionally, the conventional method of hydroentangling affords little ability to introduce patterns and loft to the articles, and makes use of fibers that are both flammable and long resulting in no resistance to flame when dried and potential to tangle in waste treatment. Thus, there exists a need for a flushable wipe having good wet strength and that can have loft, texture, patterns and is fire retardant and dispersible.
In particular, it is desirable to have a dispersible non-woven article that can be used with a cleaning agent or aqueous solution, and wherein the dispersibility of the article is controlled by the patterns introduced to the article. It would be beneficial for the item to have sufficient wet strength and design to be used efficiently while being flushable in a toilet and of degradable material that would be safe for home sanitary and septic systems.
The aforementioned U.S. Patents and U.S. Pre-grant Patent Application Publication are hereby incorporated by reference.